Final - Protagonist Narrative

Having made sure that Zoe, Phee and the others were stable, I could finally breathe and sigh of relief. Once we  were back to the safety of the wheel I could put the next step of my plan into action. Now that we had sorted out what the Arkive really was, an ark of knowledge, we could decide what the best to deal with it would be.

“Resilience” I had heard through First, “remembrance restoration”. I could only hope that Arkive, after having failed two of the three, wouldn’t decide that the best course of remembrance was not slaughtering every human on the Wheel.

“A made thing”, First had called the Arkive. Something manufactured by such intelligence would have some kind of morality. Unlike Florian Heart, I groaned inwardly, as my thoughts turned to the volatile and corrupt Forewoman. Florian seemed more than willing to sacrifice her employees to remove the threat of Arkive and the blue dolls.

Florian, who seemed to be more than comfortable with sacrificing her employees to rid the lunar mines of Arkive, the blue dolls and soldiers; all mere obstacles to her goal of building wealth from harvesting the bernaliun within. The woman seemed like the type willing to blow up a moon to achieve her purpose. I mentally logged this away as a very real possibility, and pondered our next confrontation. I would give her one more warning before descending back to Arkive's chamber for the last step in my plan.

“Zoe,” I turned to my companion, “do you think you could adapt the sensors on the wheel to register the movement of the neutrinos that Arkive is spewing out? I'll have my hands full with explaining things to Jo and Sonia.”

“I believe so,” she said, “ but would we be able to detect them through hundreds of feet of moon?”

“The boys can been given low power blasters to make a sort of liquid amplifier in the ice of the moon. It should make for a fine neutrino detector.” Not to mention a trap if Florian's desire to be a success continues to blind her, I thought, but I kept that one to myself.

The shuttle was nearly back at the Wheel. Back there, I'd be able to get a further poke around the Blue Doll we'd autopsied earlier. Yes, it appeared to be synthetic, but I wanted to take a closer look at its cognitive functions so that I'd know if I'd need to be humane if it turned into a fight.

It wasn't fair for the Blue Dolls and Soldiers to have to be caught up in all this. They were made things, as they thought of themselves; made in turn by a made thing. Hopefully my last encounter in which Arkive told me her story of ruin through the Blue Doll had placated her and shown that at least my crew and I meant it no harm.

Sonia touched my shoulder. “We're here, crew. Let's go see how Jo is getting along.”

Yes, I thought, now comes the explaining. Jo must understand that all I do between dealing with Florian and the Arkive, I do with the best intentions of her citizens. Peace, resolution, and repair of the relative continuum displacement zone, probably not without cost.

“Fantastic,” I grumbled as I stepped off the shuttle, “I’m beginning to sound like the bloody machines.”